Essays and information calling for Americans to choose a public option for national health care, with a particular emphasis on the excesses and abuses of health insurance companies in our current system.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Late Game Gunk

Let's say you're a fence-sitter. You like fences -- you're from Arkansas and they've got a lot of them, and you like to sit on them. No problem! You can be a Senator; you can be a senior senator. All you have to do is make statements that hedge and shift. Arkansas has a lot of hedges, too, often placed directly adjacent to fences.

And if you do drop off, Lord forbid, the fence? Make sure you don't get embarassing, money-green gunk all over your nice clothes, Senator.

The price of one senator to vote against legislation that will save lives, money, and prevent human suffering -- especially in her home state of Arkansas, where 20% of the state is uninsured? That price is apparently $325,350.

Her move today to come out strongly against the public option in the late days of the debate is a live-action dramatization of this cartoon -- by waffling for months instead of choosing a policy and negotiating for it (the attitude of several more principled senators who are also not firm 'yesses' on the public option -- those who are pulling for their own plans), she helps ensure that no reform at all passes this year.

What a shame! You know how hard it is to get gunk off a nice silk suit.

EDIT: Forgot to give you fine people a way to contact the Senator with advice on repairing expensive fabrics. There's still time to apply stain stick before the grease soaks all the way through!

DOUBLE EDIT: You can donate to an ActBlue campaign to run a pressure advertisement pushing Senator Lincoln to represent her constituency here.